Assessment and management of ecosystem biomass accumulation typically involves extensive field data collection, which includes parameters such as foliar area, stem diameter, woody biomass measurement, etc. The acquisition of these data can be expensive and time consuming, while leaving the user with relatively crude values for modeling intricate dependent variables, e.g., woody and foliar bioma...

EarthData Technologies has performed a research and development project to investigate the possibilities of a comounted LIDAR system to enhance the performance of the Geographic Synthetic Aperture Radar (GeoSAR) system. The LIDAR system could provide precise ground control points that can be used in the mosaick process and it could add valuable information about tree canopy structures to the pr...

A 3-D Monte Carlo ray-tracing simulation of LiDAR propagation models the reflection, transmission and absorption interactions of laser energy with materials in a simulated scene. In this presentation, a model scene consisting of a single Victorian Boxwood (Pittosporum undulatum) tree is generated by the high-fidelity tree voxel model VoxLAD using high-spatial resolution point cloud data from a ...

We describe the design, implementation and performance of a novel airborne system, which integrates commercial waveform LiDAR, CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) camera and hyperspectral sensors into a common platform system. CAF’s (The Chinese Academy of Forestry) LiCHy (LiDAR, CCD and Hyperspectral) Airborne Observation System is a unique system that permits simultaneous measurements of vegetation v...

Estimation of riparian forest structural attributes, such as the Leaf Area Index (LAI), is an important step in identifying the amount of water use in riparian forest areas. In this study, small-footprint lidar data were used to estimate biophysical properties of young, mature, and old cottonwood trees in the Upper San Pedro River Basin, Arizona, USA. Canopy height and maximum and mean laser he...

The geolocation accuracy of spaceborne LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) data is important for quantitative forest inventory. Geolocation errors in Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) footprints are almost unavoidable because the instability orbital parameter estimation and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) positioning accuracy. This study calculates horizontal error multi...

This article presents the use of new remote sensing data acquired from airborne full-waveform lidar systems. They are active sensors which record altimeter profiles. This paper introduces a set of methodologies for processing these data. These techniques are then applied to a particular landscape, the badlands, but the methodologies are designed to be applied to any other landscape. Indeed, the...

Developing accurate but inexpensive methods for estimating above-ground carbon biomass is an important technical challenge that must be overcome before a carbon offset market can be successfully implemented. Previous studies have shown that full-waveform LiDAR (light detection and ranging) is well suited for modeling above-ground biomass in mature forests; however, there has been little previou...

This study explores ICESat/GLAS waveform data in Thuringian Forest, a low mountain range located in central Germany. Lidar remote sensing has been proven to directly derive tree height as a key variable of forest structure. The GLAS signal is, however, very sensitive to surface topography because of the large footprint size. This study therefore focuses on forests in a mountainous area to asses...

Satellite and airborne observations of surface elevation are critical in understanding climatic glaciological processes quantifying their impact on changes ice masses sea level contribution. With the growing number dedicated campaigns experimental operational satellite missions, science community has access to unprecedented ever-increasing data. Combining datasets allows potentially greater spa...